It's Nice to See Reliable
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: Yoshino didn't like Touma one bit, when they first met. He was too much like her sisters. But he did one thing her sisters didn't. He helped her out instead of sneering from the sidelines. And then he listened when he was stuck and she offered a way out.
1. 1

**A/N:** Written for the:

Digimon bingo, the non-flash version, #658 - Yoshino/Touma  
Becoming the Tamer King, Training Peak Task  
Diversity Writing Challenge, d6 - drabble novel with chapters under 500 words  
The 28 Days of Love Challenge, day 8

* * *

 **It's Nice to See Reliable  
** _1._

Touma is the perfect gentleman when they first meet.

She kind of wishes he'd slipped up with that costume of his but he didn't. And hasn't since. He's the new kid but he barely makes a step wrong and it's all wrong and fake and _not even fair_ because she's the veteran. She's been around the longest… and yet she makes more mistakes than him. He absorbs the life like a sponge soaking in water and isn't he going to start dripping all over the place because he's absorbed too much?

Geniuses – gifted like him… She hates them. Always so perfect on the outside but she's lived with three. Gifted musicians and she can barely carry a tune in comparison.

And here she's found a niche to fit into and someone else has fallen into the role like it's made for him.

She doesn't like that. She doesn't like that at all.


	2. 2

**It's Nice to See Reliable  
** _2._

Touma is strong. His Gaomon can't reach the Adult level as well but that's just a small comfort. It'd mean something more if she can and he can't but neither of them can so that's still fair game and the gifted ones always seem to manage to climb to that height first. So she has to work extra hard and it's rewarding because he's pushing her to be stronger without even knowing it but there's also that lurking thought at the back of her mind that it's all going to be for naught.

She can't bear seeing it all become for naught but she knows better than anyone hard work doesn't always pay out, especially when she lacks the natural talent. And she thought she'd had it, too. Here, at least. Doing this. Being a Chosen. Saving the digimon that get lost in their world and cause chaos and sending them all back.

And now Touma has shown up and does it all smoother and better.


	3. 3

**It's Nice to See Reliable  
** _3._

Maybe she shouldn't be happy about the chaos but it is. It means that, no matter how good Touma is at his new job, he can't handle it all on his own and so she still has her own. He can't be in two places at once so she can take one and it matters that she's not as fast or efficient but she still gets the job done and that's all they can afford.

She's still important. Still necessary. But her position is all the more precarious now that there exists someone who can do it all better and faster and yet with far less experience…

And the drift is just widening, instead of shrinking.

She falls further and further behind and it's through no fault of her own. Just because she isn't gifted like him.

Just because she isn't gifted like her sisters that hey give up on her and ship her off.


	4. 4

**It's Nice to See Reliable  
** _4._

She slips up. The target gets away from her and wrecks havoc until Touma comes in to help.

She tries to smile and thank him for the help afterwards but it comes out more like a grimace, she's sure. Because it bites that she needs saving. She's not a damsel in distress. She's not incompetent either – and at least the Commander recognises that, because she gets a harsh reprimand and extra work piled on her desk.

Miki and Megumi pity her, and think it's strange that she's kind of happy to be facing that sort of punishment. It means he expects better. Knows she can do better. Not just giving her lip service and a spot on the task force for simply having a digimon, just like she'd played so many times on stage because of her last name.

She's going to do better. She can do better and she will.


	5. 5

**It's Nice to See Reliable  
** _5._

She has to get stronger. And she's not going to get stronger the way she's going now.

She's not going to ask for help, either. Her pride won't allow it. What she can ask for though is opportunity. The tougher battles. The battles that are just slightly out of her reach and so she has to stretch herself for them. Because just training on her own is too slow. She needs to get better, and get better faster otherwise the bridge will become a chasm and there'll be no safe place for her to leap towards. So she's on the field as much as he is and they both live out of home so they can both afford to take any job, any hour of the day or night. He gets stronger but so does she and it's not her job to worry about how fast he gets strong. She only has to worry she's strong enough to defend herself against anything.

Then Lalamon evolves and she's not sure if that means they've gotten stronger still or they would've been toast otherwise.

Though it's strange being the one saying something somewhat encouraging to someone like Touma, instead of the other way around.

And he's more gracious about it too.


	6. 6

**It's Nice to See Reliable  
** _6._

The Commander tells them to work together for this assignment.

Oh boy, she thinks. That's going to go about as well as when she works with anybody else. Because no pair is equally balanced. They never are. And imbalance means conflict. Not much one can do about that.

But he's telling her to work with a guy who's never slipped up once when she's slipped up plenty of times in front of him and she just doesn't do well with people like that.

Her sisters are the perfect case in point.

And then there's the fact that she's still smarting from being the damsel in distress and no doubt he thinks she's that incompetent.

This was going to be unbearable.


	7. 7

**It's Nice to See Reliable  
** _7._

They're stuck. How surprising.

And that's surprising because she doesn't expect to get stuck when she's with a perfectionist, but then she thinks about it and realises that's a weakness as much of a strength. Touma can't find a plan he's a hundred percent confident in and therefore he gets stuck.

Well, she's a little more reckless than that. She can see a few options and none of them are perfect but all of them are doable.

She outlines them.

'There's no guarantee – ' he begins.

'Of course there's not,' she snorts. 'You study as hard as you want but there's no guarantee the questions you get on a test are ones you can answer, or you screw up for some other reason on the day. There's no guarantee you'll defeat digimon you don't know but you take those tests anyway and you fight anyway, don't you?'

'…I do prefer my odds to be reasonable, though,' Touma says. 'The more prepared you are for a test, the less likely nerves will get you on the day or the majority of questions will be ones you can't answer. And digimon have a lot of similarities. Knowing them make them predictable.'

'Humans too, I suppose.' She's teasing him. She's actually teasing him.

'Well, some of them do surprise.'


	8. 8

**It's Nice to See Reliable  
** _8._

They try her plan out after all. Go with the one has the best chances (even if Touma puts them at around sixty percent) and they win the bet.

'That's not even the worst odds,' she shakes her head afterwards. 'People win big on the lottery, you know.'

'Tell me you don't play.'

'The lottery? Nah.'

They smile at each other. Now that she's found Touma Norstein's weakness, she feels quite a bit better around him. Not that she means to exploit his weakness. It's more knowing he has one. And she's shown her own strength around him too. And that's without Lalamon needing to evolve into the Adult form, too. One mission wipes away both her insecurities and therefore her beef with him. There's one left, naturally, but he agreed to her suggestion. He listened, instead of walking all over her.

That's more than her sisters ever did.

Sure, it could be different when he's confident his plan will work and she has cause to disagree. But they can cross that bridge when they come to it.

She sticks a hand out. 'Welcome to the team.'

He shakes it, not mentioning he's been on the team for six months. Because she knows that. She's talking about something else. And he knows that.


End file.
